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Document Management Systems Are Key to Remote Work

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Some industries have taken advantage of document management systems — a digital tool to track, manage and store documents — for years. Businesses that operate on swift deadlines and thrive on collaboration understand the importance of having digital workflows. Organizations that host many appointments with customers or patients use form solutions to gather information. Companies with remote workers know that digital archiving is paramount to protecting sensitive documents through remote storage.

However, other businesses who have been forced to adapt workflows and connect remotely with both employees and customers may find document management solutions key to continuing business operations. Collaboration and secure storage can benefit any workplace, whether your organization is temporarily pivoting or intends to have remote workers as part of your workforce into the future.

Digital Workflows

Most businesses have faced shifts in operations throughout the first and second quarters of 2020. Your employees could be faced with more work, cumbersome processes and other difficulties while working remotely. Additionally, your business could be facing an increase in demand for certain products and services.

Document management systems offer digital workflows, which allow managers and employees to measure a volume of work and understand where projects stand in the process of completion.

These digital workflows can increase productivity by automating content-based tasks and create computer-aided work models that complete repetitive jobs quickly and accurately. That doesn’t mean you have to leave these tasks completely in the hands of the digital workflow. The program allows you to be as hands-on or hands-off as your work requires.

Digital Archiving

As employees are working remotely, they’re accessing company networks through potentially vulnerable internet connections. Additionally, everyone is working through the trials of life at home where computers and laptops could be damaged. Document management systems provide digital archiving, keeping your company’s documents and data secure in the face of cybersecurity risks or potential hardware damage. On-site and remote storage options, automatic backup and structured or unstructured organization methods keep you covered so you never have to worry about your files disappearing or being unavailable if your server crashes.

Not only do document management systems provides a secure way to store documents digitally, most systems come with customizable administrative controls so managers can restrict access to sensitive information or share documents selectively. Storing documents digitally also makes it easier to search for and find data.

Forms Solutions

For businesses that rely on form completion for collecting data like customer history, inventory tracking or client invoicing, a document management system can cut down on an unwieldy process. The amount of resources consumed by creating multiple duplicates, forwarding information and making it available for reference by employees can translate to a convoluted and time-consuming paper chain.

Forms solutions can help your organization control and enhance this exchange of data through automatic file routing, work prompts and progress notifications that streamline manual processes and eliminate additional data entry. These forms also can be accessed from anywhere.

Document Management Systems: The Filing Cabinet of the Future

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Do you remember when businesses first began to use email? It revolutionized how we communicated and conducted business. Workers and customers no longer had to wait days for a response to questions or comments. Employees could share information in seconds, even copy others into an email thread. Spam and junk filters added extra security, ensuring that suspicious emails or unnecessary notices were cleaned out of the inbox.

Businesses have been using email for decades to send and receive notes and documents, but they’re likely using outdated technology to store them. If you’re storing your documents on a single computer drive — or worse, a filing cabinet — you may want to consider a document management system for your company.

Here are some benefits to using a document management system to store, track and manage your regular documents.

Storage

Digitally-archived documents are more visible and easily accessible than files lounging in manila envelopes in filing cabinets, said John McGill, solutions engineer at Infomax. Searching for a document by keywords or dates is much easier electronically in a document management system than leafing through papers. Additionally, if one paper document is damaged or destroyed, your business could lose priceless information for good. Digitally archiving documents through remote storage and automatic backup ensures that disaster won’t destroy them.

Security

Consider how easy it would be to lose a document in the dregs of a filing cabinet or how difficult it would be to keep track of a document multiple people take out of a file. Even if employees store their documents on their individual computers, those files could be destroyed or compromised if a computer is damaged or hacked or if a computer file is deleted.

“If two people work in the same office, only one of us can see the document at the same time in a paper world,” John said. “There also could be documents in an office that not everybody should see. There’s nothing stopping from me from going to that filing cabinet and looking at it.”

With a document management system, you can set permissions so only some employees are able to view documents. The system can also track who checks out or edits a piece.

Forms solutions

Businesses that work directly with customers may benefit from digital forms solutions that allow clients or customers to fill submit forms. The system will then convert forms and input data directly into the company’s management program. The document management system cuts down on clutter and archives forms for future reference.

Digital workflow

Not only do document management systems provide necessary storage and security, they also allow employees an easy system to keep track of tasks. Documents can be edited by different employees and departments. They system will notify another user when the file is ready for their input.

To learn more about our document management system and how it can work for your office, contact us today at 1-800-727-4629.

Regular cybersecurity training for employees keeps your business safe

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Despite businesses’ best efforts to use encrypted networks, firewalls and other cybersecurity measures, cybercriminals hack millions of networks each year, and cyberattacks are still on the rise. The majority of successful cyberattacks on companies originate through emails. Infomax knows that training employees to recognize cybersecurity threats is a necessity.

Not only is it imperative to protect a business’ confidential data and documents, but protecting against cyberthreats also saves a company’s finances. For instance, ransomware — a type of malicious software or malware that denies user access until a ransom is paid — is forecast to cost U.S. companies and organizations about $11.5 billion in 2019, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.

“We can put out lots of safeguards to make the company secure, but it doesn’t matter if employees don’t know what to do,” said Doug Postel, Infomax’s IT director. “In about 80 percent of ransomware cases, it’s not the technology that gets hacked — it’s the person.”

Doug walks us through how to train employees to recognize cyberthreats.

Regular training

Periodic training is key to keeping companies safe from the latest cyberthreats. Cybercriminals are extremely tech savvy, organized and always advancing their tactics. At Infomax, we keep track of trends so our clients don’t have to. We send regular training tips and tests to our iGuard Managed IT services clients so they can keep up to date. Training often includes a video or a timely examination of a recent security breach in the news.

“We look at a breach that’s happened, how to prevent it and what to look out for,” Doug said.  “There are new threats every day. If you’re not in a subscription mode where you’re getting updates to threats constantly, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable.”

Careful downloading

Approximately 92 percent of malware is delivered through email phishing, according to  Verizon’s 2018 Breach Investigations Report. It’s imperative to teach employees about safely receiving and downloading email files. Many companies use filtering systems for emails, but they aren’t 100 percent foolproof, Doug said.

Cisco’s 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report found that in 2017 hackers most often used Microsoft Office formats — such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel — to hide malware. Other files hackers often used included .zip and .jar files, as well as PDFs. As a general rule, employees shouldn’t download any files from an email that they weren’t expecting to receive.

Caution clicking

About 91 percent of cyberattacks originate through phishing emails, according to research by PhishMe. To test employees, Infomax often sends test emails similar to phishing attempts employees could receive. Phishing emails are often sent from email domains that have one or two letters off from a company’s actual email, or the email address will include “.org” or “.net” instead of instead of the accurate domain.

Emails prompt employees to click a link that will take them to an unsecured website or download malware. Some links will mirror accurate website employees frequently visit. The imposter sites prompt employees to sign into their accounts, allowing hackers to gain secure passwords.

Similar to downloading documents, employees should only click on links they were expecting to receive and that they thoroughly inspect, checking email domains and links against past emails they have received. A telltale sign of phishing attempts is that they often try to send recipients into a panic by including an urgent warning. Additionally, it’s always safer to navigate to a website you have previously visited rather than to click on a potentially phony link through an email.

Administrator support

It’s important to have a company culture that reinforces cybersecurity efforts. Business administrators can ask Infomax to train and test employees on cybersecurity efforts. Managers will receive a countback of who has participated in that training.

“If an employee fails a test, it’s a chance for us to reinforce that the error could have cost the company tens of thousands of dollars,” Doug said. “It’s a great chance to provide further training.”

To tighten up your workplace’s security, contact us today.

“We take the headaches off of the business owner,” Doug said.

Improve Document Security with Follow-me Printing

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Technology is changing everything at an insane pace. However, while it might feel like the digital age has made paper documents obsolete, printing technology has kept pace with everything else. One way printing has transformed is with follow-me printing, a secure way to facilitate printing jobs on shared networks. Read more

Cover All Your Bases When It Comes to Document Security

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You want your company’s data to be secure. Whether it’s protecting employee records and sensitive client information or guarding official papers that you don’t want competitors to see, document security is one of the many responsibilities that every business has to address. Companies are tasked to categorize both paper and electronic documents based on a predetermined sorting system that identifies each document’s level of security.

Whether you are developing your classification system from scratch or altering one that is already in place, it is important to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to document security.

The first step in document security is to determine an agreed-upon labeling system for both paper and electronic documents. There are two distinct aspects of how you classify data: the document’s sensitivity level and the document’s designated audience. Tiered levels of classification are meant to determine strictness of security, whereby a level one document is less secure than a level two or three document. Furthermore, these tiers determine who can access the data, whereby any company employee may be able to view a level one classified document, but only high-level managers and officials can view and edit level three files.

The next step is enforcing these new protocols and ensuring employee compliance. One way to do so is to consider automating the classification process. Document automation software automatically classifies and stores all of your electronic documents—from emails and memos to invoices and scans. Moreover, automating the process also provides instant restrictions on file access based on your company’s fixed parameters. Finessing your business’s document security system by incorporating Document Automation software through a Managed Services Provider (MSP) like Infomax removes human error and ensures compliance with your new system.

Most established companies have some document security protocols in place, but are they effective? Revisiting your predetermined document security rules to clarify, simplify, and modernize policies is recommended to ensure that each piece of data is secured appropriately every time. When it comes to employee compliance, simplicity is key. Ensure that your rules are precise, unambiguous, and easy to follow so that your team can comply with your internal document security protocols. One way to modernize your system is by bringing in an MSP to evaluate your current filing system and improve it with software designed to optimize workflows.

Contact Infomax today to learn how Document Automation can systematically streamline your business’s document security protocols.